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5 Steps To Take If Your Identity Is Stolen

Date: Sun, 03/05/2006 - 07:23
Submitted by imkimssister on Sun, 03/05/2006 - 07:23
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1. Guard you SSN

2. Monitor your credit report

3. Shred all of your old bank and credit card statements along with junk mail credit card offers.

4. Have your name removed from the three credit bureaus marketing list so you don't continue to get those 'pre approved' credit offers.

5. Add your name to the name deletion lists of direct marketing Associations Mail preference service and telephone preference service used by marketers.

6. Do not carry extra credit cards around, don't carry any more than what you'll need.

7. Copy all contents of your wallet on a photo copy machine--both sides.

8. Do not mail bills or checks from home. The reason being, your checks can be chemically washed clean of your signature and reused. It happens!!!

9. DO not have your SSN printed on your checks!

10. order your SSN statements once a year (your earnings and benefits)

11. examine your credit card statements very carefully to make sure everything is yours before paying.

12. cancel your unused credit cards

13. Never give your credit card or bank account number out over the phone. (unless you trust the business and you called them to initate this payment.

14. Subscribe to one of those credit monitoring systems that alerts you when someone has put in for credit with your name. (very helpful!!)


Excellent ideas, Shirley! Where I work now, I sell an addition service for American Express cards that ehlps to reimburse the costs of correcting identity theft. It helps to reimburse legal fees, lost wages for having to take time off from work to pursue that matter, and it reimburses fraudulent cash ATM withdrawals. Do any of you carry American Express?


Submitted by Jedi Mistress Ari on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 18:10

Jedi Mistress Ari

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Another good idea is to actually keep your billing statements in a little file cabinet. If they never leave the house, how can anyone scavenge off of them? Plus, they come in handy when there is something to dispute.

Paper shredders are a good idea, but they are not entirely foolproof. Any desperate crook with a lot of scotch tape and time on his/her hands can spend all night puzzle-piecing together all the shredded documents, and then...victory!


Submitted by Jedi Mistress Ari on Mon, 05/01/2006 - 19:04

Jedi Mistress Ari

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That was very good information provided Shirley. At my place of business (I handle payroll for several companies)a courier truck was stolen and on the truck it had several payroll packages for our clients. These packages include ss #'s,bank acct numbers, company check information-- the whole nine. It is very scary of what can be done with this information. Although the courier is a third party courier, our customers still look at us to blame for this.


Submitted by Rhonda28 on Fri, 05/05/2006 - 18:33

Rhonda28

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My favorite form of identity theft is when your university's computer system is hacked and they get away with 40,000 SSN numbers. Luckily, I was one of the 15,000 spared in that mess. My alma mater quickly did away with requesting SSN for account info and online sign ons... they just had us use screen names and passwords. It amazes me that some places still require you to enter your SSN ONLINE to get something. AMAZING! My roommate was one of those who had her number stolen and it was such a pain for her. Changing everything took her forever. I am very cautious about anything dealing with personal identity.


Submitted by Ehwin on Tue, 05/09/2006 - 13:20

Ehwin

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